Announcing Bloo Too. The first open-source Facebook app for Android. Artists are you out there?

After a few weeks of trying to determine the future of Bloo, I finally reached a decision. Before I get started let’s discuss the current the state of things.

Bloo One (let’s call it like this from now on) was released a year ago and it turned out to be a huge success for Android. You might be tired hearing it, but words cannot express my gratitude for your support and loyalty in my effort to provide you a better Facebook app for Android. It took me approximately 2 months to prepare the first version and I loved every second of it. I loved supporting it and replying to your emails, hearing you out and reading your comments. As it turned out, I joined Logitech and now work as an engineer for Logitech’s version of Google TV. Let’s not start talk about Google TV but I promise you we are putting all our efforts to create a fantastic product for you guys. Ever since I started working my time to develop and support Bloo One has been very limited and when you combine this with Facebook hiccups, things are just aren’t working out very well.

Since my last post I started thinking if I can just throw up the source code on git and let you guys have a shot. However, looking at the code Bloo One uses it did not seem suitable to go open. The code has worked very well but generally speaking it was my first shot for Android and I think I could do things much better. Its been approximately 2 years I’ve been working with Android and my skills with the platform are exponentially better. To put it simply if I had as much free time as I had back then and the skills I have now Bloo would be a superior app to what it is today.

So what’s the deal now? I have a good friend of mine who has already helped me with Bloo One in a few sections and we both decided that it is time to let the “reset” Bloo and start from scratch. Obviously, you are wondering what does this mean? Well, here’s the plan. We will be rebuilding Bloo (named as Bloo Too) and provide a basic version for you out there and then we will open source it. We want to invite the Android community to participate into the development of Bloo.

Notifications. Yes, they are here just as good (even better) than in Bloo One. Faster and much better battery consumption.

New code, much faster, resusable, accessible and structured much better.

It does sound as good as you think, but, you might be wondering where the hell is the rest of the features? Where are my events, inbox and photos? They are all coming. Our intention is to release the first skeleton version of Bloo Too and open source it. We will be adding features quicker when we have you by our side. We both do not have the time to support everything but with you we can make this the best Facebook app on ANY platform. Here’s ideas for you guys that you always wanted and can now be achieved:

Widget

Event RSVP (thanks to new Open Graph API)

Chat (more on that below)

Contacts sync

@mentions for friends

Pokes?

Now, what’s happening to Bloo One? Well, there is a huge change in Facebook policy that might affect it. If Bloo One is deemed unusable with the new policy I am going to have to remove it from the market only for it to be reincarnated by Bloo Too.

As for Chat. There is a floating version of Bloo 1.5 with chat embedded in it. There were a few reasons it was not released. While it was tested, it still did not seem good enough to release it. Bloo One was becoming “fat” with tons of stuff going on, larger size and overall slow experience. I do have Chat project waiting to be plugged in to Bloo Too once the time comes for it.

If you are an artist and you like to participate in Bloo Too please start pumping icons and send them to me via email ( dnkoutso at gmail dot com ). We are looking for the following:

Send them to me, I will go over them and contact you so you can participate for Bloo Too and make a great UI for our first version.

Finally, please understand that the future of such an attempt is always uncertain and it really depends on the community involved. As you know, people almost always prefer the official apps in any case. Who knows, perhaps a future update on the official Facebook app could literally prove that there is no such need for an app like Bloo Too. At this time, we are moving forward with this and the future of Bloo will be decided along the way.

Sounds exciting to me! I still think Bloo is the best Facebook app out there. One thing I would like (and I have no programming skills, so sorry for just making request without being able to help) is a way for it to remember where you were in the friends feed and update around that (like Seesmic for Twitter).

Also, for some reason Bloo seems to use the most battery of any app of mine, usually, as I scroll to the bottom of the feed and it has to update more.

VERY excited! I’ve loved Bloo One since I first used it. The native Facebook app is still useless in my opinion, and Bloo is better than any other app I’ve used in other platforms. One huge advantage Bloo has over the official one is that you only display the things that matter to me, if you guys can make it so that you can select what things to filter out and which ones to include, that would be awesome.

Can’t wait for Bloo Too. I’m sure the community will be able to help out a lot. I am no developer, but Bloo was one of the few apps I immediately purchased, and would do it again for Bloo Too.

Excited! Just please try to keep 1.5 still running until Bloo Too is released. I felt like my umbilical cord was cut the 2 weeks I was without it and had to use Babbler(YUCK) and the Official FB app(Double YUCK)…

Hyperexcited. Bloo is the best thing Facebook has going for it on Android. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start stealing things once you open source it considering how superior Bloo is to the official *cough* client from Facebook. Thanks for not giving up. :)

I agree with JM’s comment. Bloo is the only FB client that has photo tagging feature. My opinon, if mobile FB client that has no photo tagging features, it is an useless apps. People want to share their day-to-day experience via pictures and tag their friends in it. Please do not remove this features for the 1st version of Bloo Too.

One thing it’d be nice to have in this would be the ability to follow youtube links in Facebook posts. I haven’t found an FB app/widget yet that will do it and it’s annoying having to load up the browser and going to the site just to view a silly youtube someone posted.

This makes me so happy. I’ve been an avid fan of Bloo since I first got it three months ago in place of the crappy FB for Android app, and I have no intentions of ever turning back. Making Bloo Too open source will be absolutely amazing, and definitely provides the potential to make this the best mobile FB app EVER.

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Please make this happen! There is your app, official and a now abandoned babbler. The official is just horrendous! Android needs a good Facebook app to keep in competition with the iPhone!! Just my 2 cents!

I’m finally on the bandwagon of advanced customizing: rooting, skinning, SDK-ing, and I’ve scoured the forums and other android online communities (i.e. xda developers) for the best apps for everyday use. As an avid Facebook user, I gotta have access to Facebook whenever, where ever. Bloo is definitely the fastest, and most promising Facebook application that I have come across. Great job so far! Thank you for continuing the production of such a great app!!! :)